What are the keywords of advice you would share with anyone who needs to accelerate the introduction, adoption, and profitability of digital content and products globally in 2018? While I have been asked this question several times for the last couple of months, my answer has been very similar regardless of industry and background. Think about investing in meeting the level of authenticity and empathy that your local customers require!

News Item

Android users are now able to enjoy what their iPhone counterparts have been able to use for quite some time: the popular magazine reading app Flipboard. According to Gigaom, once users sign up on the Android site, they will receive a link to join the beta version of Flipboard. While impatient users found ways to get around waiting for this beta test, which is the official launch of Flipboard for the Android format.

Medallion Media Group has announced a new ebook format called TREEbook which includes a time-triggered reading experience which allows the book to generate different story lines based on readers pace and other triggers. The time sensitive story changes will not be made by the reader but by the book itself. This new technology can also give ebooks the options inserting hidden extras and different narratives.

Ebook distributor OverDrive announced plans to launch a new ebook reading platform called OverDrive Read. OverDrive Read will enable readers using standard web browsers to read ebooks online and offline without having to install any software or activating their device.

The New York Times is reporting that Facebook is hoping to release its own smart phone sometime next year with the help of former Apple engineers. The sources for this development come from within Facebook, saying up to six former Apple engineers are developing it.

A new survey from SteelHouse shows that Pinterest users are nearly twice as likely to make purchases from items they have seen posted on the site as compared to Facebook users who see an item in their news feed. According to the survey, 33% of Facebook users said they purchased a product or service seen on Facebook, as compared to 59% of Pinterest users.

While Tim Cook looks to keep certain Apple practices and traditions in tact, he is also looking to make his own mark on the technology giant, according to Fox News. Speaking at "D: All Things Digital"s Cooks says that as CEO he will be upping Apple's humanitarian efforts around the world and also monitoring the conditions for 700,000 workers in China more closely.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been given 14 days to challenge a ruling that would send him back to Sweden to face sexual assault and rape charges, according to The Guardian. The central point Assange's attorney's must challenge would be the interpretation of international treaties determining if a public prosecutor can be considered a "judicial authority" which would make Assange's arrest warrant lawful. If it is determined that a public prosecutor is not a judicial authority, Assange might not face extradition.

Menlo Ventures, an investor in consumer and enterprise technology companies, has announced that its portfolio company, PowerReviews, has agreed to be acquired by Bazaarvoice. PowerReviews Is a social commerce company that allows customers to share their insights on brands while Bazaarvoice, a software-as-a-service company, offers social commerce solutions to retailers and brands.

DeepDyve is making its library of peer-reviewed journal articles available to purchase for customers looking for articles relating to a number of different subject areas. This new service allows users to rent articles then gives them the option to buy if they choose.

Tiki has announced that next generation Wiki CMS Groupware, Tiki 9.0, is now available with a number of new features. Some of the newest features include improved security and spam protection, new plugins, improvements to calendars and other Tiki features, as well as improved batch actions and token access.

Wi-Stylus Mobile Systems has announced a suite of stylus-like pocket device designs which will allow users to write, draw, and communicate in the air or on any surface, person or visible space around them. The company says this new technology is meant to replace traditional note pads or scratch paper used in meetings and will also make digital transfer much easier to a computing device.

Data Conversion Laboratory has announced a new online publishing portal which the company says will re-energize previously dormant content into highly accurate digital knowledge that can be searched, reorganized, ported to ebooks, and published into most formats.

ScribbleLive has announced the release of a new product ScribbleLive Advanced Content Module, which was part of a collaborative effort with The Associated Press. This new product will allow for better real-time journalism, the company says, by allowing news teams to create live blog posts and articles that combine different content such as images, tweets, video, and audio.

IBM has announced the closing of its acquisition of Vivisimo. IBM had announced the company was acquiring Vivisimo on April 25, 2012. As a result of the takeover, about 120 Vivisimo employees will join IBM's Software Group and IBM will gain Vivisimo's customers, such as Airbus, the Social Security Administration, the US Navy and Air Force, LexisNexis, and others. IBM believes this move will further strengthen its position in the field of large data analytics as the company sees this industry growing by 40% over the next few years.

BA Insight, a company that works in agile information integration, has announced a partnership with MuseGlobal, a content integration firm. Under this partnership, MuseGlobal's library of connectors to hundreds of "beyond the firewall" content sources will now be added to BA Insight's existing library of connectors.

Marketo has announced a new tool for marketing automation with the launch of its new Marketo Social Marketing. The new product is a suite of easy-to-use products the company says will make every marketing campaign inherently social.

In an effort to broaden its reach across platforms, Yahoo has launched Axis, a new web browser for Apple's mobile devices. According to the Washington Post, Axis was designed to allow users to move between devices and look at the same searches. Users can sync up to other devices by logging into their Yahoo accounts.

A significant decision in the patent infringement case, Oracle v Google, has been reached and a jury has decided that Google's involvement with Android did not infringe on Oracle's patents with Java, according to the Washington Post. As a result, there will be no damages awarded.

The number of movies and television shows available on Amazon's Prime Instant Video got a little bit bigger with the announcement a licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures. The agreement will bring hundreds of movie titles to Prime Video over the next three years.

Data integration firm Kapow Software has teamed up with SDL's WCM division to expedite the movement of legacy digital content to SDL Tridion. Kapow says that customers can now automate the migration of content from multiple sources into SDL Tridion using the Kapow Katalyst platform.

Social video chat provider ooVoo has announced several new features to the service. The biggest is a new video chat app that works in conjunction with Facebook allowing up to 12 friends to chat at the same time. The feature can be used on a home computer or mobile devices.

Big Data mobile location company Sense Networks announced two new products, AdMatch and AudienceSense, which the company says will allow marketers to reach new audiences and allow publishers to monetize mobile advertising. Sense Networks uses location and prediction to understand users' behavior, which will allow advertisers to target an audience.

Google CEO Larry Page made it official -- though not "Facebook official" -- yesterday when he announced in a blog post that Google finally closed the Motorola mobility deal, buying the company for a reported $12.5 billion. Page stressed Motrola's willingness to bet on Google's Android operating system, and thanked CEO Sanjay Jha for his confidence before announcing that Jha had stepped down. Taking over as Motorola Mobility CEO is Dennis Woodside.

Limelight has announced a number of upgrades to the Limelight Video Platform and Limelight Dynamic Site Platform. The most recent enhancement gives users the ability to publish videos across multiple online and mobile sites and manage video channels from within the Limelight Dynamic Site Platform interface. The company says by managing web and video assets from one dashboard, it will speed up internal process and increase publishing frequency.

Adobe has announced a new way for media companies to broadcast channels online and replace ads in the broadcast stream with dynamically inserted ads. This new system, called Primetime Simulcast, is an enhancement to Project Primetime and is supported for iOS, Android and works with browsers across all major desktop platforms. According to Adobe, Primetime Simulcast provides an end-to-end workflow that enables media companies to simultaneously deliver that same content to connected devices while replacing ads in the broadcast stream with dynamically inserted ads.

UK bookseller Waterstones has signed an agreement with Amazon to launch new e-reading services as well as offer Kindle digital services though its UK shops. With this agreement, it will allow Waterstones to give digital reading to customers in its stores and be a compliment to their traditional book selling services, which the company says it is committed to.

If you were one of the people who rushed to buy Facebook stock last Friday, you're probably none too happy today. Stock prices fell about 11% from Friday's closing price of $38.23. Prices fell as low as $33 per share before rebounding a bit to $34.03 before closing.

New data from digital business analytics company comSource says that Facebook users are not reliant on just Facebook for their social networking habits. Data shows that the percentage of Facebook users using other social networking sites, including Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest, are rising. At over 40%, the percentage of users using other social sites and sharing services is up from 20%.

Online ad technology company Vizu announced the availability of a series of case studies developed to evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches to social media advertising. A survey Vizu conducted says 63% of brands it polled said they planned to increase advertising on social media sites, the company believes these studies will help companies looking to widen a brands' reach.

Microsoft has launched a new social networking site called So.cl, which is designed to combine social networking and search, according to ReadWriteWeb. Initially targeted at students, So.cl allows users to research a topic and then share what they think are the best pieces of information on that topic on their page.

No one likes to pay for content but a new set of surveys not only suggests that people are becoming less hostile to the idea of paying for digital content, but also reveals what types of content people are willing to pay for. According to a survey from DigiCareers, which looked at habits of US digital media professionals, 42% of respondents say they will explore prices and actually consider a purchase decision.

Lately Warren Buffett may be more famous for talking about his tax returns than his business savvy, but that's not stopping him from picking up some new properties. According to the Wall Street Journal, Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy 63 papers from Media General for $142 million.

Online publisher Examiner.com has launched OnTopic, which the company says is a comprehensive service that provides topic and location specific content at scale for publishers, agencies and brand marketers. OnTopic will individually match each content request with a qualified contributor that will deliver consumer-based media across a variety of categories and locations.

Digital business aggregator Factiva will begin to incorporate selected Twitter feeds on its site. The Twitter streams will act as compliments to the wide range of content in Factiva which include 8,000 business blogs. Factiva says is customers will be able to follow along with what industry leaders are talking about.

In the months since Pottermore finally opened for business, e-reader enthusiasts have been buying the Harry Potter ebooks in droves. Now Kobo users can also get in on the action, but just like everyone else, they'll have to purchase the ebooks through Pottermore.

Dutch publisher Brill, and software provider Publishing Technology, have partnered up to launch a new aggregated scholarly portal call Brill Online Books and Journals. As a result, all of Brill's content, including 2,400 ebooks and 175 journals, will be available in one location.

Google has once again reworked its approach to search in an effort to better find what users are searching for by introducing Knowledge Graph. Many words or phrases have multiple meanings which search engines aren't always capable of recpgnizing.

Zoho announced the launch of Zoho Sites which the company says is an easy to use website builder. By using Zoho Sites, the company believes it will allow businesses to quickly create professional websites without having to code.

The new iPhone will have a screen that measures 4 inches diagonally from corner to corner, according to Reuters. This is an increase to previous iPhone screens which currently measure 3.5 inches. The move to a bigger screen might be a response to Samsung's Galaxy phone, which has a 4.8 inch screen and outsold the iPhone in the first quarter of 2012. Apple has reportedly already started ordering the bigger screens from suppliers.

With Facebook's impending IPO approaching growing closer, the social media site has announced it will be offering over 421 million shares of stock in the company, according to the Washington Post. Founder Mark Zuckerberg will be selling 126 million personal shares which will lower his post-IPO voting power slightly.

EBSCO has announced the availability of two digital archive databases entitled "Gateway to America: The People, Places, and Organizations of 19th Century New York" and "Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books." The "Gateway to America" collection is a series of historical directories, year books, registers, member lists, organization reports and primary source documents. "Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books" has over 30,000 pages of handwritten material from 1748 to 1817 documenting day-to-day military life with a concentration on the Revolutionary War.

Seventeen new states have joined together in a class action law suit against Apple and various book publishers bringing the total to 31 states accusing the defendants of conspiring over pricing, according to paidContent. New details about the suit, such as behind the scenes price negotiations have been detailed-including an email from Steve Jobs writing about options publishers had in relation to e-publishing options.

For the first quarter of 2012, revenue for online coupon vendor Groupon, Inc. soared 89% to $559.3 million, compared to $295.5 million posted in the prior year's quarter, according to Daily Deal Media. This news sent share of Groupon up 18.5%, or $1.84 per share, to $11.74 in after-hours trading.

Academic publisher Springer will be working together with the Italian National Institute for Higher Mathematics to publish a series of books in the field of pure and applied mathematics called Springer INdaAM. Beginning in 2012, the Springer INdAM Series will publish textbooks, multi-author books, theses, and monographs which result from various academic activities and events carried out at the Italian National Institute for Higher Mathematics.

Vital Source announced the company's conformance certification for IMS Global Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) v 1.1 with learning outcomes, which the company says will help more institutions, faculty and students take advantage of what the platform has to offer. The LTI platform will make textbooks easier to port into e-textbooks which Vital Source, a distributor of e-textbooks, sees as a significant plus and makes e-textbooks a much more appealing option for schools.

GovDelivery, a provider of government-to-citizen solutions, announced the availability of a comprehensive guide to best practices for digital communication with an emphasis on the role of email. The guide, entitled "Public Sector Digital Communication Management Best Practices: The Critical Role of Email" shares the best practices for the most effective use of email.

Amazon will be debuting three new blogs in the near future, according to The Daily. One blog will be about tech gear and gadgets offering reviews of new products, which will then link back to the Amazon site for purchase. Another blog will be entertainment based discussing comics, movies, and TV shows. The third blog will revolve around digital photography and apps that accompany it.

If you are one of the few people left who haven't read the Harry Potter novels, perhaps you just haven't had the right access: hardcovers, paperbacks, ebooks sold through the Pottermore website. None of those options worked for you, but don't fret. Starting on June 19, you'll be able to borrow the ebooks from the Kindle Lending Library, giving you one more option to read J.K. Rowling's ubiquitous series.

AddThis has launched a number of new social plugins, analytics, and audience products to provide a full suite of sharing and engagement tools for publishers and brands. With these new tools, the flow of big data will become more actionable for advertisers and allow for enhanced real-time analytics.

The personalized magazine app, Flipboard, is now available for Android phone users, according to ReadWriteWeb.com. Previously, this popular app was only available to iPhone and iPad users but has finally been ported for Android by a developer at XDA Forums.